October 31, 2018

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The Chronicle

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T H E I N D E P E N D E N T D A I LY AT D U K E U N I V E R S I T Y

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2018 DUKECHRONICLE.COM

Nobel Peace laureate speaks on campus By Isabelle Doan News Editor

In 2014, the Islamic State launched an attack on Sinjar, Iraq, taking thousands of Yazidi women captive and killing hundreds more. Nadia Murad was one of those captives. She was forced into sexual slavery. Murad’s ordeal has led her to speak out against the Yazidi genocide and sexual violence as an act of war. Along with Denis Mukwege, she was jointly awarded the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts. Just a few weeks after her honor was announced, she spoke at Duke Monday evening as part of the 2018 Crown Lecture in Ethics. Judith Kelley moderated the free public talk, called “Truth is my Weapon: A Campaign Against Sexual Violence and Genocide,” and fellow activist Abid Shamdeen interpreted for Murad. She detailed how ISIS launched its genocide against the ancient religious minority. “[ISIS]’s goal was to eradicate the [Yazidi] community,” Murad said through Shamdeen. “But they specifically targeted women. They wanted to enslave the women.” Murad explained that ISIS knew that for a small community like the Yazidis, the most important thing was dignity and honor. ISIS therefore specifically took Yazidi women into sexual slavery in order to break the community. Many of those who were not captured faced death. Murad said that ISIS killed her mother and six of her brothers, and two nieces were killed after being taken into captivity. “Each Yazidi family has a story like that,” Murad said. “Some of them don’t have stories because the whole family was taken when ISIS attacked. Then they just basically shot everyone.” Despite ISIS’s efforts to break the community, Yazidi religious leaders made a powerful decision—that the women and girls who were taken captive must be reintegrated into the community and respected when they came back. “It was a very courageous decision to... accept them back, despite the ISIS propaganda that they told the women that when they go back they will be killed and not accepted,” Murad said. “We wanted them to know that’s not true.” However, the community faces its own challenges due to the scale of ISIS’s destruction. Murad explained that ISIS destroyed everything—schools and medical centers included. Shamdeen recalled that when Murad went home last May, ISIS’s sheer destruction was apparent. “Even the doors and the windows in her house were taken,” Shamdeen said. Still, Murad worries that the Yazidi people will disappear due to their fractured state. According to Murad, since the genocide See LAUREATE on Page 3

ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEENTH YEAR, ISSUE 22

DUKE AND DURHAM The story behind a shifting town-gown relationship

Charles York | Special Projects Photography Editor Duke’s relationship with the city has changed through the years. The inauguration of Nannerl Keohane as Duke president was a key turning point.

By Shannon Fang Towerview Managing Editor

Special to the Chronicle Duke has celebrated the 20th anniversary of America Reads America Counts.

The students exercised an attitude as if they were better and on an upper level than us. willie patterson

PRESIDENT OF THE CREST STREET COMMUNITY COUNCIL FOR 35 YEARS

In the 1990s, Durham’s tobacco and textile industry was receding, the economy was declining and crime was increasing. At the same time, Duke University was on the rise. At the intersection of highways I-40 and I-85, Durham became the drug distribution capital of state, said John Burness, who was Duke’s senior vice president for government relations and public affairs and led the formation of the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership. And as the town’s main source of income and jobs was disappearing, the newly-inaugurated president Nannerl Keohane recognized Duke’s growing presence and importance to Durham. Sam Miglarese, director of the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership, explained that the University and Health System became the only existing corporate bodies in Durham. The University was and is the largest private employer in the city and largest employer by dollar volume. However, Burness said the limited corporate presence meant that no one took ownership of the city’s problems, so people turned to Duke. Separate from the city Those inside and outside the University regarded Duke as separate from Durham, Burness said. Duke was an insular place, where students rarely ventured beyond the University walls and were not engaged in the life of Durham. Shops and restaurants downtown would close by 5 p.m. and were viewed as crime-ridden. Miglarese said that Durham residents felt Duke was solely focused on its own agenda of becoming a leader in research, teaching and scholarship. Duke’s interactions with the community were disjoint, unfocused and mostly ineffective, he said. According to Miglarese, many of Durham’s communities of color were research subjects for the University. However, the data that these studies developed were never shared with the communities, and people felt used by Duke.

Special to the Chronicle A focus of the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership is affordable housing.

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